Judy L's UFO Challenge

Saturday, September 27, 2008

Play Date

I went to my friends house for a sew date. I did lots of pressing and cutting for new quilts. Nancy V on stashbuster mentioned to me about having some UFOs that were uninspiring. I told her she should send them to me so that I could play with them. I thought there was one but she sent two. One of the UFOs she sent 4 blocks for plus some other pieces. I love this one.

Below are the layouts I played with. I like the third layout and was trying to lean toward on point settings but may change my mind. Nancy asked I donate these to charity but really would like to give this back to her. It is really nice.

All comments on layouts are welcome!

This is the other set of blocks that she sent. There are lots of possibilies with these but I will push this one down the list for now.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

I Checked My Goals for September I am always uncertain what I had hoped to finish as the month draws to a close. I have my tote left to finish. There were 3 in all but 2 are done and mailed. The other item was to knit chemo caps and mail them to my friend. I heard from a lot of other people that they had the same plans. I wondered if I should continue with this plan and decided to ask her what she thought. Her idea was what I had hoped she would say. She said she would donate extras to others she encounters that would like a hat.

I didn't list my other goal of getting RR's done this month but I still want to accomplish that as well. I have mailed off at least three this month and have a fourth almost ready to go. It isn't due until October but the recipient is prepared to accept it. I hope to mail this weekend.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Do I have too much? Too much for what? I have a sense I might. As I pawed through putting my kits together it was rather eye opening to realize the size of the stack of a dozen quilts existed many times over in various stacks and piles in my sewing room. The exercise of kitting may have been just what the doctor ordered. On my last fabric shopping expedition it was apparent that I was effected. I didn't buy any fabric!

Do I still love my stash? I do. I can think of two pieces I bought because it was on sale that I now wonder how I will use them. It isn't that I don't like them it is just that I have to find a different purpose. I even have the mauve and blues from the 80s and still love them!

What will I do with all the projects I make from my stash? Well use them of course. Will I ever have too many quilts? I might but I have started using them more. My kids could use more quilts. I can gift quilts and other items to others outside the family. I made my first charity quilt this year and have plans to make more. I don't think this is too hard to address!

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Am I Brain Washed? I went to Golden D'Or with a friend on Saturday. This is the place where I recently purchased a large amount of fabric. I was very close to finishing my last UFO and had just read on the Stashbuster group to repeat to myself while looking at fabric "I have an obscene amount of fabric. I have an obscene amount of fabric." I didn't mean to have that mantra run through my head. It just sort of popped into my mind and wouldn't go away. At one point I even picked up a bolt of fabric and said...."This is pretty but won't go with anything I am currently working on." My head snapped around looking for the impostor with my same voice. What did she say??!?!?!?!? Ultimately I walked out with 1/2 a yard of lace for my crazy quilt collection at a whopping total of $2.17.

Quilt Kits I made my list of 12 quilts to work on next. In order to be on the list I must already have the fabric and pattern in my possession. It was way to easy to make that list. Last night I went and bagged up the corresponding fabric and material for each project in a 1 or 2 gallon Ziploc bag. I have to admit I am missing 2 pieces of fabric and 1 pattern to finish this task. I was interrupted with math homework. I will find those last two items and the pic you see here will include all of the kits.

Monday, September 15, 2008

UPDATE: SURGERY CANCELEDTotal Knee Replacement And the saga continues. DH is at the hospital now waiting to get his knee re-replaced. I am getting kids to school and will be heading back up there. I hope this time goes better.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

An Exciting EventI finished my last UFO. Here is the block I contributed. To see the rest go here. This quilt was quilted by my friend tirane93. If you are interested in her services you can email her from her blog.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

My TV and DSL were out a few weeks ago. It took several days for the repair people to get here to fix the issue. I decided to check the box to see if there was anything obvious since we had just had a storm. This is what I found. He was eating ants.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

Tweaking My Blog I do not usually notice people's tweaks that they make on their blog unless it is a complete overhaul. Since I have only one UFO left to complete I felt it was time to make a WHIMM (works hidden in my mind) or a HSY (haven't started yet) list. I went with HSY since I have the fabric for lot's of quilts purchased to specifically make a pattern. I was able to quickly list a dozen quilts and felt that was a good number to start with. I have three I would like to complete for Christmas gifts so will probably work on those all at the same time. All 12 will be "kitted" this weekend so that I can quickly find my fabric and pattern.

I noticed on the "dashboard" for my blog that I had a follower. I dug around a little bit and learned how to become a follower of other blogs and then to list my own followers. I like the feature so far as I can quickly at a glance see who has updated recently. The only bad thing is some might think I don't like them. I like so many blogs...I am sure my list will grow as my memory brings you to the forefront!

Friday, September 05, 2008

Machine Quilting After Hand Quilting I spent 2 solid months hand quilting my 7 Sisters. I learned a lot in the process about the technique and myself. I can be persistent. I stayed with this quilt and am so close to a finish. Goal setting was my friend in this case. I learned that I love hand work. I always did my binding by wrapping the back to the front but not anymore. I like the clean look of it sewn on by machine then hand tacked to the back. I am a convert. Now I look for things to work on by hand so that my t.v. time is not wasted completely. I may pull out UFOs from other techniques and get those finished up too. May...

When I sat down to quilt my Chain Events I decided to break it down into sections. I am amazed at how quickly everything went by machine. My free motion skills were still decent and I actually have improved. Amazingly this Queen size quilt is almost done. I decided to continue quilting a few "empty" spots. That will be completed tonight. I also hope to get the binding made and machined on tonight as well. I should easily be able to get the binding tacked down before the weekend is out as well.

Not sure where I am going with this post. I think the one thing is that I am learning to enjoy the process more. In the past if someone suggested I quilt more than I had already I would be upset because I felt I was done and I didn't want to think I wasn't and had to do more. Now I have an attitude of just go do it if it needs to be done. I know I will be glad I did.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

16 Motifs That is how many maple leaf wreaths I had to quilt. 13 down three to go. I plan to finish them tomorrow and then find my fabric for my binding. I am going to repeat my brown in the quilt in the binding.

Once those are done I have a few spots that I have to decide what to do with. Should I quilt something inside the stars in the yellow squares? The other spot is at the point of the 4 patches in the borders. One suggestion I had was to use more of the pattern that I used in the 4 patches. Suggest away please!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Stashbuster Retreat and UFO Progress This past weekend was the stashbuster retreat. I decided to get an RR done and in the mail as my first priority. That went off in the mail on Saturday. I am left with one RR which I have started hand quilting. I am glad I got this piece early. I have 6 weeks to quilt it. It is small and should be doable.

On UFOs. I decided to start quilting my Chain Event. I decided to quilt small portions every day in order to not wreck my neck and shoulders and to allow me time to tend to other things. Saturday I stitched in the ditch around the 9 stars. Sunday I quilted all the 4 patches that surrounded the stars. I stitched an arc along each of the edges of the 4 patches. From the back it looks like a star flower.

I got through that quilting pretty easily so drafted my quilting pattern for the free motion onto Golden Threads paper. I wasn't totally satisfied with how it looked so took my drawing with me to my friend's house. We talked about how it looked and I made a small change to it. I am using nylon thread to quilt. They suggest that you unthread your machine and sew through one design into all your papers to mark the pattern. Somehow with out realizing it the nylon worked it's way into my sewing machine and worked it's way around the arm. I was able to get some out of the works but have to take the machine to the shop to have the rest taken care of. I was really disappointed in myself for allowing that to happen and to not be able to get more quilting done. Live and learn!